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Robin Lee Row
Robin Lee Row was a woman who murdered her family to collect insurance money. Background Early Life She had two kids, Joshua and Tabitha from a previous marriage before she met Randy Row. With the children, she arrived in Boise with only $2 to her name. In 1988, she got a job at the YWCA. While she was a kind and successful businesswoman, she was a cruel and strict mother at home. Her husband, Randy Row, was described as a kind blue collar man. But he and Robin constantly argued over her constant spending habits. She one day spread a false story that Randy was physically abusive, saying that he was attacking and threatening her. Her close friend Joan McHugh believed her and often let Robin stay at her apartment. Murders On February 10, 1992, Robin Row awakened McHugh around 3:00 a.m. to tell her that she had "a terrible feeling that there was something wrong at her house." McHugh agreed to check on the apartment with Row. As they approached Seneca Street in Row's car and saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, Row told McHugh that there must have been a fire, even though they could not yet see smoke. Once they arrived and saw that the apartment was burning, paramedics informed Row that her children and husband had been found dead. Robin Row's husband, Randy, and her two children, Joshua and Tabitha, had all died from carbon monoxide poisoning while they slept in their upstairs bedrooms during an early morning fire at their duplex on Seneca Street in Boise. Investigation Detective Gary Raney lead the investigation. The fire quickly started to look like an arson fire. Investigators would later conclude that the fire had been intentionally set downstairs with a flammable substance that likely burned slowly before igniting a much hotter burning petroleum product. The circuit breaker for the smoke detector was shut off and the furnace fan was set to full on and run continuously, feeding the flames and circulating smoke quickly through the home. Raney spoke with Robin a few hours after the fire. He noted her lack of emotion. "It was not normal, even for a mother," he said. The EMTs became suspicious when she repeatedly asked why the smoke detectors didn't sound off. This was suspicious because no one had told her that the smoke detectors didn't go off. She also told police that the money from the bingo proceeds had been destroyed in the fire. A box with all the bingo proceeds were found intact. It was discovered that Robin Row had been stealing bingo money for months. She was arrested for grand theft. While Row was in prison, the police discovered she had taken five life insurance policies on her family, which totaled to $250,000. The last policy was taken sixteen days before the fire. It was the then discovered that she had a 6 year old son named Keith who died in a cabin fire in 1980. She had taken $28,000 worth of life insurance on Keith. The problem that police had was Row's albi was solid. She was sleeping at McHugh's apartment. The police got Joan McHugh to trick Row into admitting that she wasn't in the apartment at 3:00 a.m. This was enough to charge Row with murder. She was found guilty of three counts of first degree murder and sentenced to death. She is awaiting execution in prison. Category:Black Widows Category:Murderers Category:Psychopaths Category:Arsonists Category:Killer Mothers